


Sometimes I Dream of Empire

by orange_panic_archive



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: 2021 Avatar Pro-Shipping Rare Pair Challenge, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Forgiveness, Prison, Redemption, Sad Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29772069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_panic_archive/pseuds/orange_panic_archive
Summary: General Kuvira is sentenced to eight years in prison. She only has one visitor, and it is not who she expected.
Relationships: Iroh II/Kuvira (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15
Collections: 2021 Avatar Pro-Shipping Rare Pair Challenge





	Sometimes I Dream of Empire

**Author's Note:**

> This is not my normal ship but I somehow got this idea in my head and it didn’t leave. Luckily there seems to be an Avatar rare pair shipping challenge going on! I wrote this all in one go after a 21-hour car ride and a stiff drink so fingers crossed it's okay.
> 
> I do not own LoK or anything in it. I also know there are rules to Pai Sho somewhere but I fudged it, don't judge.
> 
> Hopefully this counts as shipping... and fair warning I made myself cry.
> 
> Written for the Avatar Rare Pair Shipping Challenge prompt Hurt/Comfort: https://avatar-rare-pair-ship-challenge.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> I love comments.

The outer door opened with a thud. “Kuvira,” said a gruff voice. “You have a visitor.”

Kuvira looked up from her splinter of wood. Her heart pounded. It had been four months, by her count, and she’d seen no one but the guards. Finally, _finally_ he’d come. There was only one person who would want to see her now, and of course he’d needed time.

They led her down the wooden hallways of RCP-E. A strong oaken yoke bound her hands in front of her, but she had long since given up thoughts of escape. Still, she understood the precaution, and accepted it. For every action, there was a consequence, and this was hers. Even surrounded by material she couldn’t bend, she was by no means powerless. Honestly, Kuvira would have thought considerably less of the United Forces if they hadn’t restrained her. The ironwood truncheons of the guards thumped and clacked as they walked, always two. One firebender, one waterbender. They took no chances. 

As they walked, Kuvira thought about what she would say to Baatar. She had loved him, had loved him for years, no matter what everyone thought. Social climber, they’d called her in Zaofu. They’d done it behind her back, but she’d heard them anyway. Orphan. Unwanted. And young Baatar Beifong, soft-hearted fool that he was, had taken her in like a stray moose lion and expected her not to bite. Just like his mother. 

But that wasn’t it at all. Baatar Jr. _was_ soft-hearted, and that was what she’d loved about him. He was kind and smart, and wanted the best for his people. But he also had steel in him. It wasn’t always obvious, but he did, deep down. He’d wanted peace more than Suyin had, and in the end had been willing to do what was necessary. And so had she. In that sense, they were more alike than anyone knew.

Yes, she had loved Baatar. Just… not enough. Not enough. But how did you tell someone that? 

The guards deposited her just inside a large room set with well-spaced tables and chairs. Everything was made of wood, down to the pegs in the furniture. Taken objectively, it was an impressive feat of engineering. Kuvira was getting very tired of wood.

“Rules,” said the beefy one to her left. He had piggy little blue eyes and almost no neck, and smelled like an old sandwich. “No touching the visitor. No taking anything from the visitor. No giving anything to the visitor. Move slow. Keep your hands visible. You have one hour.”

Kuvira nodded, scanning the room for a familiar face as the fat waterbender unlocked her hands. Two other prisoners sat at tables around the room with their visitors, and there was an unfamiliar man with his back to her, but no Baatar. Perhaps they’d bring him in now she was here. She walked over to the closest table and sat, folding her hands on the table. 

The man who’d been standing alone turned around, and suddenly Kuvira recognized him. She should have known, of course, but she was so focused on Baatar she hadn’t registered the uniform. 

He strode toward her, a hard expression on his face. Wait. _This_ was her visitor? Of all the people in the world…

“Good morning, General Kuvira,” said General Iroh of the United Forces. He gave her a curt nod. 

Kuvira’s heart sank. Not Baatar then. He hadn’t forgiven her after all. “Good morning, General Iroh.”

The general stood there, tall and straight in his crisp crimson and white uniform, not a thread out of place. His golden eyes were implacable beneath his thick eyebrows. He seemed to be waiting for something. Belatedly, Kuvira realized she hadn’t stood, nor had she invited him to sit. So formal.

“Have a seat,” she said, and he did, pulling out the chair across from her. “I admit, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I shouldn’t think you would be,” he said. He looked momentarily thoughtful. “Come to think of it, I’m not sure we’ve ever formally met.”

“I consider thrashing your army introduction enough,” said Kuvira. Iroh stiffened at that, then the corner of his mouth turned up in a little smile.

“I hardly consider what you did to me ‘thrashing’ considering all I did was watch. I choose to believe I remain untested against you. President Raiko, on the other hand…” He trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid. Though his small smile remained, his eyes took on a hard look, and Kuvira got the impression that the general was less than pleased with how he’d been commanded to surrender at Republic City.

“Well, victory by abstinence is victory nonetheless,” she said. She gave the wooden room a pointed look. “I suppose if I’d won it would be you in here.”

“Hardly.” This time Iroh’s smile showed genuine amusement. “Though I’d love to see what would happen if they put a firebender like me in E-wing by mistake.”

He had a point. Republic City Prison had four wings: E, F, W, and N, each made of different materials and with different guards and protocols to suit the benders and non-benders inside. No one knew quite what to do with airbenders yet. From what she understood, RCP-F was made entirely of metal and ice. It sounded uncomfortable.

“What do you want, General?” Kuvira asked. “Well met on the battlefield or no, I hardly think this is a social call.”

“No.” 

“So what are you doing here?” She was genuinely curious. If nothing else, it broke up the monotony of working on her little stick project. 

Iroh rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose… I’m here to understand.”

***

Kuvira thought hard all the way back to her cell. Of all the people to visit her. _Iroh._ A man she’d never met, and who she’d only stood against in battle. He’d explained that he was stationed in Republic City now and was in charge of both reconstruction and strengthening its defenses. He was trying to learn from her. That made sense. Even if he hadn’t fired so much as a shot during the actual battle, he had a reputation as a formidable tactician and he'd use every available resource. Frankly, if he’d been running the show instead of Raiko and the young Avatar, she might have thought twice before coming for the United Republic at all. But it still wasn't entirely clear to her why he'd come.

A month went by before a guard announced she had another visitor. This time, Kuvira wasn’t so hasty to assume it was Baatar. She still hoped he’d come around, or would at least give her the chance to explain herself, but she was no stranger to abandonment and when she saw General Iroh again the sting of disappointment was not so strong. It had been a fool’s hope that Baatar would come for her after what she’d done, and a fool’s hope it remained. Kuvira knew she was many things, but a fool wasn’t one of them.

This time, the general had a box tucked under his arm. He set it on the table as he sat. 

“Thank you for seeing me again,” he said, as if she was a busy socialite and he’d just come to tea. Kuvira was finding she liked Iroh—not because of anything specific about him, but because he made her feel less like a prisoner and more like a person. 

“What’s all this,” she asked, nodding to the box.

“I was hoping you played.” General Iroh clicked a small white latch and unfolded the three sections of a Pai Sho board. It was beautiful. The light tiles were made of some kind of cream-colored stone and almost shimmered in the overhead lights. The dark squares were a dull, rich brown. Instinctively Kuvira tried to bend, but nothing in the board reacted.

Iroh chuckled, a sound low and almost musical. “Don’t bother,” he said. “It’s bone, not stone. Dragonbone, tiles and all. It’s my own personal set. Most of the commercial boards would pass, but I thought you might be tired of wood?” Kuvira looked up to see that little half smile again. 

“You came all the way to RCP to play Pai Sho with me?” she asked, baffled. 

“No. I came to talk with you. But I like Pai Sho, and it’s not often I get to play against another general. I don’t lack for talented opponents, but I find we play… differently, I suppose. I was hoping you’d humor me.”

It’s not like she had much else to do. “Fine.”

General Iroh set up the board while he talked. His questions were similar to the last time he’d come. Why had she taken up arms against the Earth Kingdom’s rightful ruler? Why had she threatened the United Republic, which hadn’t been in Earth Kingdom control for centuries? What did she think of King Wu’s plans for democracy?

And through it all, they played. Iroh took up the dark tiles, surprising her. Kuvira had never invested much time in Pai Sho, having more practical things to focus on as she ascended through the ranks of the Zaofu guard, but she was competent. Competent was not nearly enough to counter Iroh, who admitted he’d been playing since he was a child. Yet even though he won, Kuvira got the feeling that he’d let her last far longer than he could have. 

“Well played,” he said as he packed up the game. “And thank you for your time. I find it helpful.”

Kuvira had no idea what he meant by that. She had no army now. She had no mecha, no standing, no power whatsoever. But she let the comment slide. If General Iroh wanted to help break up her month with a board game, she wasn’t in a position to turn him down. 

***

After the first year, he finally asked her. He’d slid his black dragon into a position that threatened two of her own pieces, but Kuvira had no idea which. She’d gotten a lot better, but sometimes his tactics remained a mystery to her.

“Do you regret it?” Iroh asked. He carefully did not meet her eyes. 

“No,” she said quickly. “Nothing.” As she said it, Baatar’s face flashed across her memory. She was surprised to realize she was starting to forget what he looked like. “I did what had to be done when no one would. Wu was a fool, a child, and Suyin was a coward. Someone had to be strong for my people.”

Iroh made a little humming noise, then hopped his black dragon two spaces to capture her white rose, which wasn’t either of the pieces she’d been worried about. _Shit._

“There comes a time,” he said thoughtfully, “when you realize that you are the hero you have been waiting for.” 

Kuvira made a dismissive noise. “There are no heroes in war, General. Only different kinds of victims.”

He looked up, apparently startled. “I don’t believe that. And please, call me Iroh. It’s been long enough.”

“Because you need to believe that you’re a hero, _Iroh?”_

“No. Because I need to believe that, after everything I’ve done, I still can be.” 

Kuvira didn’t know quite what to do with that. The expression on Iroh’s face now was one of pain. Pain, and an inexpressible sadness. She sat back, stunned. She’d never seen anything like it. Usually the general was confident, even cocky, approaching their monthly games and conversations with a kind of quiet amusement. Now, he looked like a man staring down at a knife in his gut.

“Sometimes I dream of empire, you know,” he said softly. He studied the board, apparently unable to meet her eye. “Of how I could fix it all. Save everyone, if only I were in charge. If everyone would just _listen to me.”_ He said this last part in a harsh whisper. “Iroh the Great, they’d call me. Just laws in every land, order out of chaos. Peace, finally.” Iroh slid his black dragon left, and then she saw it. He’d boxed her in. “I would hold the world in my flaming fist and I would call it peace,” he said. He reached forward and flipped her white lotus tile over. He’d won again. “But who am I? Who am I to judge what is just? Who am I to judge what is peace?”

Kuvira had no idea what to say. She’d never heard such emotion from him. 

Iroh shook his head, seeming to shake himself out of something. Finally, he met her eyes. “Do you know why I come here, General Kuvira?”

“No.” It was an honest answer. The first Sunday of every month and she was still as baffled as she’d been that first day.

“Katara of the Southern Water tribe once told me that, of all his descendants, I’m the one. The only one who reminds her of Firelord Ozai.” Suddenly he slammed his fist on the table. _“And she’s right.”_

“What?” Kuvira knew Firelord Ozai from history, of course. He’d been a warlord, a tyrant, a man so obsessed with ruling the world that he’d burn it all down just to be emperor of the flames. To compare that man to Iroh? A man who’d dedicated his life to service, and who from all accounts conducted himself with bravery and honor? Who seemed so thoughtful, and kind? It didn’t make any sense.

“That’s why I come, Kuvira,” he said. He started packing up the board. “I’ve sent men to die for the greater good. Husbands, fathers, sons. I’ve done it, and I’ve believed it to be right. I believe it still. And yet… those faces.” He hung his head slightly. “I need to know that you and I can be forgiven. For doing the right thing. And for having the arrogance to think we know what that is.”

***

Iroh came the first Sunday of every month for the next seven years. He always wore his uniform, freshly pressed, yet Kuvira watched him change all the same. He slowly filled out, in a good way, his chest and shoulders broadening until the person staring back at her was no longer a youth, tall and lean, but a man grown. The first streaks of gray flecked his temples, and faint lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. Yet his deep golden eyes never lost their luster, and as he grew older they only seemed to brighten in his careworn face. Kuvira hoped she’d aged half as well, but doubted it. Prison was no place for beauty.

Gradually their topics shifted from the strictly military to other areas. The lessons from history. What was owed by duty. Philosophy. Morality. They never talked about their personal lives, but that was all right. It wasn’t like Kuvira _had_ a personal life, and the life she’d had before she’d just as soon forget.

And while they did, they played. 

By the time she neared the end of her sentence, Kuvira was very good. Iroh still beat her nine times out of ten, but he was no longer handicapping her. The first time she’d won outright he’d beamed at her, his broad smile transforming his face from merely handsome into something radiant. 

“That’s hardly the look of a loser,” she’d said archly. 

“There is grace in a well-earned defeat,” he’d shot back. Then, to her surprise, he’d stood. He squared his shoulders, then bowed deeply. “Perhaps in another lifetime, we’d have fought side-by-side,” he said. “It would have been an honor.”

Kuvira turned away, blinking back tears. 

The next time they met, she was careful. She’d been a model prisoner, but still. But no one paid her much mind. The waterbender and firebender guards had long ago gotten used to her monthly visits from the general, and she wasn’t watched as closely as she once had been.

Kuvira went to move her wheel tile and let the extra tile drop to the board. Iroh’s eyes widened in surprise. She pulled her hand back and he picked it up, examining it.

“You made this?” he asked, his voice breathless.

Kuvira smiled. She’d had a lot of time on her hands over the years. What had started as an idle way to pass the time had turned into a full-fledged hobby. One could make all kinds of shapes by rubbing wood on wood, given enough time. The shelf in her cell was littered with small sculptures now; polar bear dogs and mountain ranges and the faces of long-forgotten friends. And this—a black dragon tile, and underneath it the characters 饶恕.

_Forgiveness._

When she looked up, Iroh’s eyes were shining.

***

Kuvira stashed her things, such as they were, in the cheapest room at the Grand Republic Hotel in downtown Republic City. The world had changed so much while she’d been gone. Satomobiles whizzed past, their bodies long and sleek instead of the boxy things they’d been just a short time ago. Telephones were everywhere, not just in central areas but actually _in the hotel room,_ as if somehow people had decided it was necessary to be reachable round the clock. Radio had given way to movers, which had shrunk so they could be played on little boxes instead of only in theaters. Everything seemed fast and loud. 

Still, it could have been worse. Fashion had changed, but as she’d worn nothing but a dull green jumpsuit for years and then a uniform for most of the time before that, shopping was rather fun. Kuvira had kept in shape—spirits knew she had little else to do inside—and when she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror she thought she didn’t look half bad. Dark pants, a bright green blouse, and even a hint of makeup. 

It didn’t take long to find his house. General Iroh was a well-known public figure in Republic City, and it had been a long time since there had been any real threat. His address had been listed just like anyone else.

The entire taxi ride over Kuvira thought about what she’d say to him. Or rather, of everything she never had. About how his visits had been the only bright spot in a sea of wooden boredom. How he’d treated her like a person, and a person worth knowing, when the whole world had cast her aside. How he somehow, in his quiet way, made her a _better_ person. And how one day she’d woken up to realize that she liked this better person quite a bit. It wasn’t that she was no longer Kuvira, not at all. But Iroh’s questions, his steady influence and gentle probing, had somehow shown her what Kuvira could be. Someone who didn’t need to carry the responsibility of a kingdom anymore. Someone who could simply be.

And through it all was General Iroh. Not unlike Baatar, or how she’d used to think of him. Kind and smart, soft-hearted but with a core of iron, a man who wanted peace, knew the cost, and chose to bear that burden for his people. Well, everyone had a type. As Kuvira walked up the steps to the door of the large house she thought about what it might be like to be with a man like that. They were neither of them that old. To play Pai Sho on Sundays, talk about history and philosophy and the lessons of the past, and finally live in peace. To live.

She knocked, and heard a call within. “I’ve got it,” came a man’s voice. Kuvira assumed it was a servant of some sort, given the size of the house. After all, Iroh was still a prince.

To her shock, the door opened on Iroh himself. He was dressed in a plain white shirt and the dark denim pants that were now fashionable. A small child rode on his hip, a boy of perhaps two with pale green eyes and Iroh’s thick black hair. An identical boy toddled behind, one chubby fist wrapped around the untucked tail of Iroh’s shirt.

His eyes widened in shock. “Kuvira?” 

She only gaped. She’d had no idea Iroh had a family. He’d never mentioned anyone. Yet there was little doubt the children were his.

Iroh seemed to compose himself. He set the boy on his hip down, where he promptly plopped on his butt beside his brother. It seemed that one wasn’t as good at standing yet.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. His voice came out a little sharp.

“I… I’m out,” said Kuvira. “And I didn’t know where else to go.” 

Anger flashed across his face. “So you came here? To my house?”

“I didn’t know.” All of a sudden she felt flustered. She’d thought that Iroh had been alone, alone like her. And that maybe… maybe…

Iroh shook his head, his face softening. “Kuvira. I didn’t… I’m sorry. If I… I’m not sure what you thought.”

“Who is it?” called a woman’s voice from inside the house. 

“Just a friend!” Iroh shouted back. “I’ll only be a moment.” Then he turned back and dropped his voice. “I’m glad you’re out, Kuvira. But this is my home. My family.”

She swallowed hard. His family. All of a sudden she felt so stupid. “I know. I only wanted to say thank you. For the visits. They… they meant the world to me, Iroh. I don’t think I realized that, but they did. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

The corner of Iroh’s mouth pulled up into the little smile she knew so well. He stepped forward and to her shock wrapped her in a hug. Kuvira stiffened, and realized only a second later that they’d never actually touched. His embrace was warm and strong, and she caught a faint whiff of something that might have been hair oil. She pressed her face into his collar as he held her. Then she felt Iroh’s lips against her cheek.

“I forgive you, Kuvira,” he whispered.


End file.
